


Gray Things Golden Seem

by buttercups3



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: 3 years after the blackout, F/M, Language, Miloe friendship, Non-Explicit Sex, Violence, minor character deaths (canon compliant), refugee camp, spoilers for 2.06, vague reference to sexual violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttercups3/pseuds/buttercups3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between your best friend’s relentless despondency and the constant stream of damaged survivors trickling into the refugee camp, life is hard, but it does have its silver lining: namely, your radiant, pregnant wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maywitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maywitch/gifts).



> *title taken from Thomas Hardy, "On a Fine Morning"
> 
> Whence comes Solace?--Not from seeing  
> What is doing, suffering, being,  
> Not from noting Life's conditions,  
> Nor from heeding Time's monitions;  
> But in cleaving to the Dream,  
> And in gazing at the gleam  
> Whereby gray things golden seem.

Bent over at the waist, skinning – _what is that, someone’s liberated pet ferret?_ – with the Matheson patriarchal knife, Miles could be a broken scarecrow. His cheeks are so hollowed – _idiot forgets to sleep and eat_ – that crows might have been pecking at him. Bass is trying his best not to go into this conversation already irked by the obvious tension in Miles’ shoulders, the scowl pinching his lips. Bass is trying _not_ to predict that the first words out of Miles’ mouth will be –

“Bass. Did you see the family who wandered into our camp this morning? A mother and daughter. Girl can’t be more than seven, and she came in…bleeding.”

_Damnit._

“Hello to you too, Miles. Yeah, I met Charlene and Jasmine. And yes, Jasmine was raped. Little girls get raped now. It’s what happens out there,” he gestures at the cruel, gray sky. He’s not making light of it. Hell, Shelly helped clean up that little girl in their tent a few hours ago; Bass had to carry out three pans of bloody rags. But if Miles is so bent out of shape about it, maybe he could have stopped by, learned Jasmine’s name.

But he’d rather just be angry. “It’s what happens right _here_!” Miles flings his knife into the dirt, point down, and strings out his scrawny kill in frustration. His nails are black with dried blood and dirt. Miles looks unnecessarily filthy these days. He’s got no one to clean up for.

Bass’ best friend’s temper quickly galls him, and he needs a moment to talk himself out of sparring with it; so plopping on a rock, he rakes his fingers through his thick curls, callouses catching here and there. He veers his eyes away from the stupid belt holster Miles wears his pistol in. Shelly hates guns to the point where Bass doesn’t even carry his anymore. She’s spent the past month begging him to get rid of it before the baby is born. It’s too dangerous to have a child around a weapon, she insists, and she’s not wrong. He might just store it at Miles’, if he can bring himself to face his friend’s inevitable diatribe about Bass letting down his guard. On second thought, nothing is worth inviting another one of Miles’ camp safety speeches. It’s what he’s enduring right now, and it might break him.

“What if your kid…what if she’s a girl, Bass? How you gonna protect her?”

“Fuck, Miles,” Bass snaps. “I’ll protect her with everything I’ve got – you know I will! But people have to move on with their lives. The world _has_ to go on.” Maybe this is _Miles’_ first apocalypse, but it sure as hell isn’t Bass’. He had to start a new family from bloodstains on pavement. From four mounds of dirt. 

But looking at Miles’ intense brown eyes, he clearly doesn’t get it. Miles may have willed the two of them off base three years ago, but he doesn’t know who he is outside of the Marines. Miles has got to find a purpose (other than harassing his best friend).

“I don’t get you, man. Three years, and you haven’t made a single new friend?”

“I don’t want friends.” 

“When was the last time you got laid?” Bass tries for gentle. It genuinely makes him sad to see Miles in this state.

“None of your fucking business,” is the barked response.

“You need to get a life. You just sit around and stew all day about all the bad shit that can happen.”

“That’s because it _does_ happen, Bass; wake up.”

“Good stuff happens, too. You just never fucking notice.”

“Not fair. I stood up with you at your wedding.”

“You _glowered_ at my wedding.”

Miles throws his hands on his hips and gazes off at the bluish line of hills. “I did not!”

Bass watches Miles’ nostrils puff in and out.

“I’m _happy_ for you,” Miles mumbles, and that stings Bass, because he knows Miles means it. Miles doesn’t vocalize affection he doesn’t mean.

Bass softens his voice further still and asks, “What are you skinning anyway?”

“Squirrel.” The chocolate eyes flick downward at the mutilated animal corpse.

“That’s a ferret, bud,” Bass chuckles. 

Miles shrugs. “All tastes the same to me.”

“That’s because you’re a shit cook. Come over for dinner tonight, and Shelly’ll make you something decent. I can see your ribs through your friggin’ shirt.”

Miles’ glance at Bass is forlorn, which only sends a fresh pang to his chest. If only he could help Miles, but the man’s impossible. He does not want help.

“Five o’clock, brother. Shelly’s exhausted from the pregnancy and sacks out around seven.”

Miles nods, and his mouth swings open, as if he’s got something to add, but instead he just reaches down for his knife. Bass will take that as a ‘thank you for the invitation.’

As he starts for his tent, he reaches over to squeeze Miles’ alarmingly bony shoulder just once. He really does love the stupid fucker. 

* * *

 “Hey, Shell.” Bass says to the dazzling black head of curls stooped outside his tent, before registering that she’s engaged in some kind of manual labor seven months pregnant. “For the love of God, drop that shovel. What do you think you’re doing?” He snatches the wooden handle from her and immediately starts in on her excavation before even bothering to ask, “Why are we digging?”

“I’m pregnant, not crippled, love. It’s a cooking pit. I’m going to steam some maize – see if I can’t approximate tamales.” Her brilliant white teeth flash ethereal in the gloomy afternoon. 

The mere idea of tamales makes Bass salivate. Now if only they could approximate guacamole and margaritas. “You’re amazing,” he admires, pausing to drape a hand on her swollen belly. His child is in there. He’ll never get over that wonder.

“Well, what else do I have to do? I might as well start training for Top Chef Apocalypse Edition. I mean, when I’m not stitching up ruined little children from monstrous predators roaming the wilderness.” Her smile abruptly vanishes. Warm fingers enclose on Bass’ wrist as he goes in for another pass with the shovel. “That’ll do, hun. We’re not digging a grave.” 

Bass leans on the shovel and wipes beads of sweat from his brow. “How _is_ Jasmine, anyway?”

“Traumatized. Terrified. But she’ll live. That’s the most important thing nowadays, isn’t it?” 

Bass cups the mocha cheek and marvels at how delicate her face appears in his large, cracked hand. “Shelly, if anything ever happened to you and the baby, I don’t know what I’d do.” This is Miles’ influence. His damn doom and gloom penetrates even when he’s not around.

“You’d survive, Bass. No matter what happens, each one of us must keep going. We have to set an example for kids like Jasmine.” Her pale pink lips frown. “You okay? You seem a bit…pensive.” Using a pair of rusty tongs, Shelly bends low to transfer hot rocks from the fire to the bottom of the pit, before laying filled cornhusks on them to cook. She covers the arrangement with a lid, obscuring the scent of scorched popcorn. 

“Miles,” is all Bass needs to offer. 

“Oh. I should have known. Let’s talk in the tent? I need to get off my feet.”

Bass has built them an elevated bed to keep the rats away while they sleep. Shelly is terrified of vermin, and frankly, rats are a tremendous health hazard. Bass sits at the opposite end of the makeshift bed and gathers her wool-stockinged feet into his lap, one plump, big toe poking cutely out. He rubs her arches, as she sighs extravangtly.

Bass explains, “I told Miles to join us for dinner. He was skinning a dead ferret, for Christ’s sakes. He looks like he hasn’t eaten since the ‘90s.”

Shelly chuckles, her black eyes dancing merrily. “Aw, you should invite him over more often. Poor thing.”

“He’s a pain in the ass.”

“He’s lonely, Bass. You two were all you had after the Blackout for _two_ years.”

“More like twenty.”

Shelly nods and exhales, as he probes a particularly determined knot. “Cut him some slack.” 

“I give him all the slack in the world. Why can’t he just move on to a nice lady? There’s really been no one since Rachel. Can you believe that?” 

“Miles doesn’t love _himself_. That makes it hard to love someone else.” Her voice is like molasses washing over Bass, making him drowsy.

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s just that normal-people things seem to elude him, like how to smile or hug or, you know, _talk_.” As liberating as it is to complain about Miles, Bass feels a touch guilty pointing out Miles’ social defects. He knows better than anyone that along with these unflattering traits comes unflagging loyalty, heroism, and devotion. Miles would give his life in a heartbeat for Bass, for Shelly, for their unborn child.

“We’re taught those skills by family, Bass. Did Miles have a rough childhood?”

Bass shrugs. “He and Ben lost their mom to cancer when Miles was nine. It was a pretty bleak decline. And their dad was kind of a dick. Ben was always super smart and dismissive of Miles. I don’t know. Miles spent every second he could at my house. My mom, my sisters – they all loved him. He saw some decent models of how to behave.” 

Shelly reaches down to pull up Bass by the hand to her side, snuggling down onto his chest. Her springy curls get caught in his stubble, and he guides a single strand to his lips for a kiss. 

She continues, “Well then, he was a stray cat. That’s got to do something to a man. When did he start drinking so heavily?”

“I don’t know, 16 or so? His dad was a kind of closet alcoholic, so there was always hidden booze in his house that we’d siphon off, walking that line between detection and Miles getting the belt. Hah.”

“Bass!” He feels her adorable brow constrict against his pectoral muscle.

“What? We were kids. Look, it’s a labor of love being his best friend, but I signed up for it. I’m not about to give up on him. I’m just so glad I have you, Shelly. You’re infinitely more fun.” 

Bass runs his nails down her back. 

“I like Miles!” she insists with a frown.

“Let’s talk about something else. 

“Like what?”

“Like what position you prefer with that basketball stomach of yours.” 

She giggles and inclines her head upward – soft, ridged lips suddenly against his. She somehow manages to taste sweet and spicy, like cinnamon and sugar. Bass is pretty sure his breath reeks of rancid meat all the time. Man, does he miss toothpaste.

“From behind is probably easiest.”

“Hm? Oh!” Bass feels a ridiculously toothy grin claim his face. Miles is forgotten; Jasmine is forgotten. The whole world is his exquisite wife, stripping down to her milk-coffee skin and turning her back to him.

As he shifts her hair off her neck to kiss her nape, he whispers, “You are perfect, Mrs. Monroe.”

“And you’re stupidly in love. ”

“Yep.”

“And I never agreed to change my name. How about Bass _Cooper_?”

Bass forcefully prevents thoughts of his perished family from intruding upon this moment. In any case, he could never part with his last name. “Bass Cooper Monroe.”

“Deal.”

One hand pressed against her wetness, Bass coaxes himself in, thinking about their baby on the way, little Cooper-Monroe. So incredible that a union just like this gave rise to another human – a bit of her, a bit of him. Warm and cradled in her body, Bass moves carefully, hyper-aware of how precious she is. His left hand slides to her engorged breast, and he’s vaguely cognizant of moisture there.

“They leak now. It’s a thing. Don’t ask. I also had to pluck my new mustache yesterday,” Shelly laughs. 

Bass nuzzles into her neck. Her breasts are huge; he’s certainly not complaining, but he’s getting so close to his edge, pulse thumping in his loins, that he merely mumbles:

“So soft. Mmm,” which only makes her laugh harder and guide his hand back down to the wet, tangly V between her thighs so that she can grind against him and catch up.

They come together with a mutual gasp. Bass thumps his forehead a little too hard into her curly crown.

“Oof!” she objects.

“Sorry.” 

“Don’t fall asleep on me, mister. I need you to check on those tamales in one hour.” 

“Not sleep…just resting…” Bass fades out – sated, toasty, contented.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song in this chapter is The Civil Wars, "From This Valley." Now everyone go and listen to it immediately, because it's AMAZING. No copyright infringement is intended. The song is anachronistic, because technically it came out in 2013 and the Blackout was in 2012, so...my historian card has officially been revoked. ;)

Bass is staring up at projected stars on the dimpled ceiling, one arm compressing Cyn and the other flopped around Angie – three bodies cramped on a twin bed. The needlepoints of light threaten to pull Bass to Middle Eastern desert, but he won’t let war spoil this. The faint reek of cherry lip gloss and playground dust ground him here, with his girls.

“And there is Orion’s wiener,” Bass pontificates to their horrified shrieks. (Bass and Miles always make this joke, and it never gets old.) 

“It’s his sword, Bass!” Cynthia corrects with a painful poke in his ribs.

Bass turns to her to explain that _he_ knows a wiener when he sees one, when she melts like wax into pink, blue, and blonde. His arms and legs fly in every direction, and then Shelly is holding him, soothing him.

Bass digs his fingers into his curls with both hands. “Sorry. Did I hurt you?” His nightmares have increased since the pregnancy. Maybe it’s the thought of how it all ended for his sisters, and the fact that this baby – _it could be a girl_ – will face a harder world than Angela or Cynthia ever knew.

“No, you didn’t hurt me,” Shelly confirms, kissing his forehead and extracting his worrying hands from his scalp. She studies him shrewdly for a moment, and he’s almost afraid she’ll ask what he dreamt. He doesn’t want her to know the baby brings him anxiety. But she only says, “It’s time we get up and check on those tamales.”

When the sun sinks toward five o’clock, Bass spies the gangly Miles striding toward him and, even from this distance, the stupid gun holster. Before Miles can make it to the fire and upset Shelly, Bass has teleported himself across the chasm to his best friend, thumping bodily into Miles’ lean chest.

“ _Uh_. Jesus, Bass. What?” Miles pushes him off.

“The gun. How many times do I have to tell you? Leave it home.”

“Home?” Miles asks with an ironic half smile that suggests, _I doubt anyone who’s seen the inside of my tent would call it home._ Bass notices that Miles has actually washed up, shaved, is wearing his least ratty ensemble: a black v-neck and an olive green jacket. But before he can appreciate that Miles has tried for him, Miles reminds Bass why he increasingly avoids his best friend:

“It’s not safe -” 

“ _Now_. Or I’m uninviting you to dinner,” Bass interrupts, unwilling to do this twice in one day. 

Miles narrows his eyes but turns obediently on his heel and heads back the opposite direction. Suddenly, soft fingers entangle in Bass’. _Damn, she heard._

“Oh, Miles!” Shelly calls, and Miles freezes, glancing over his shoulder. “Bring that ratty guitar you scrounged, will you?”

The dark eyebrow arches and with a subtle nod, Miles lopes away.

Shelly turns to Bass. “Gun for a guitar? Now that’s what I call a trade _up_.” After an affectionate swat at his ass, she waddles back toward the fire.

By the time Miles makes it back with said guitar, Shelly has laid out some very respectable tamales, but Bass would have expected no less. Even the rabbit filling almost tastes like pork.

Miles commences wolfing down his portion, until he appears to catch himself and remember his manners to announce (mouth over-full of masticated corn and game):

“Shelly, ‘sis amazing!”

Bass shakes his head and tosses a cornhusk at Miles’ garbage mouth, which Miles paws away before impact.

Shelly, as usual, is more generous. “Thank you!” She reaches over with a pointer to wipe something off Bass’ stubbled cheek, suggesting that Miles isn’t the only one with questionable table manners, and Bass grimaces, brushing her away. Turning back to Miles, Shelly looks him up and down. “Miles, you clean up good.”

His intense, earthy eyes follow her inspection before he shrugs, “It’s part of my new campaign to prove to Bass I’m not a crazy hermit.” 

Bass quirks an eyebrow. His friend does have the occasional moment of self-awareness separated by eons of staggering ignorance.

Shelly snorts. “Speaking of, you met my girl Margueritte, Miles?”

Miles wipes off his chin with the back of his hand.  “The six-foot glamazon? She’s kind of hard to miss.”

“It’s true,” Bass confirms, as if the question were directed at both of them. “Miles and I want to draft her for the Refugee Camp NBA.”

“That sounds even more depressing than regular basketball!” Shelly’s spritely curls bounce as she shakes her head. 

“What? Basketball’s not depressing!” Bass objects.

“Anyway,” she rolls her eyes playfully, “ _Margueritte_. You like her?” she asks Miles directly.

“What!?” he chokes, a little clump of maize sailing out of his mouth into the dirt.

“Oh, don’t like dark chocolate then?” Shelly scrutinizes. She loves to poke fun at their white-bread, hick upbringing.

Miles flushes deep crimson. “No, that’s not…” He’s almost purple by the time he sputters, “She’s gorgeous.”

“Well then, why not ask her out?”

“Because…” Miles looks helplessly at Bass, who just grins unhelpfully. “I wouldn’t know the first thing to say to her. I mean, I live in a filth pit; I sleep with rats. I’m not even wearing socks, for Christ’s sakes, and I tried really hard tonight!” Miles exclaims earnestly and draws up a pant leg to reveal a white, hairy ankle. Bass cackles so hard he has to hold his overstuffed stomach.

“Baby, you’re doin’ a lot better than you think you are,” Shelly insists, while Bass slumps into a lazy recline a la Nile River queen. “You’re a former Marine. Good looking too. Give yourself some credit,” she attempts to convince Miles, who drops his eyes in embarrassment. 

“Hey!” Bass protests from his elbows. “Don’t tell him he’s good looking. It’ll go to his head. And once a Marine, always a Marine, Shell. Not _former_. Just sayin’,” Bass shrugs at her second merry eye roll.

“Well, I invited her – Margueritte – to join us later. Until then, why not take out that guitar of yours, if you’re done eating?”

Miles coughs into his hand at the news of Margueritte’s impending appearance, but he dutifully unsnaps the one hinge that clips together the shabby guitar case. The alder of the guitar is scratched and cracked; the neck is missing a string, while the others take Miles forever to get into some semblance of in-tune. Still, the mere sight of his best friend with a guitar in hand means to Bass…well, this is _his_ Miles. He can't explain it any other way.

“From this Valley?” Shelly prompts once Miles appears to have given up on tuning. Miles nods and his fingers explode into sweet, syncopated bluegrass. Bass leans his head back into his hands, waiting for the music to seep into his own cracks like mortar, even if only for the space of one song.

His wife’s rich mezzo could tame even the post-apocalyptic monsters. _“Oh the desert dreams of a river…”_

Miles soars in on the chorus with a voice so high and clear, it never ceases to surprise Bass, though he’s heard it his whole life: under Indiana, Iraqi, and Afghan skies. It’s the one thing that never ages about his brother. It feels like hearing a secret.

_“Oh won't you take me from this valley / To that mountain high above…”_

Their mellow harmonies start to draw other refugees, who skim like moths to their light. Music is the language of the night in camp. Dan Sook brings his jimbe, and Clay (no one knows his last name) brings his fiddle, which can never quite get in tune with Miles’ decrepit guitar but sounds as close to civilization as you can get out here.

The next verse is Miles’, and Bass might ache a little for him if he didn’t look so happy to be included. _“Oh the outcast dreams of acceptance…Like an orphan longs for its mother.”_

Just as they reach the triumphant climax, _“Oh the caged bird dreams of a strong wind…Like a voice longs for a melody,”_ Margueritte thunders up, her regal, ebony face pinched in fear:

“Everyone run! They’re coming!”

Before Bass has a chance to think, foreign men are upon them with lanterns, clubs, and shotguns, stabbing the campers with blunt muzzles and wasting them at close range. The music fades to shrieking. A man digs his fingers into Margueritte’s scalp and drags her away, begging for mercy. Bass sees Miles reach blindly for his gun but finding none, fling himself on a nearby assailant and beat him to death with sickening thud after thud. Shelly is transfixed, unmoving. Bass flings himself in front of her, just as a veiny hand reaches for her hair, and gets his arms around the man’s neck, ending him with a snap that elicits a scream-sob from his wife. Her wide, black eyes reflect back to him his kill. He’s about to say something to her – _apologize?_ – when Miles’ fingers close around his bicep.

“Use the logs from the fire, Bass!” Miles suggests and singes a howling man. Bass follows his lead but takes a massive clock to the head in the process, knocked sideways. In the moment it takes him to fall, an intruder lays hands on his wife – ripping her shirt away with his dirty nails. Before Bass can scramble up, Miles dives in with his knife, spraying Shelly with her assailant’s arterial blood. As Bass makes it over, Miles is wrapping her in his jacket. Bass folds her shaking body into his arms.

In a moment, the worst has past. The invaders retreat, and Miles strides off to take stock of the damage. Bass watches Miles grab a passerby by the collar to demand, “What are the casualties?”

But the man shakes his head in incomprehension, and Miles has to follow up with an irritated, “Dead, wounded, missing?”

He appears to get the information he’s looking for, because he returns to Bass and announces with an unimpeachable air, “Stay with your wife. I’m going after the two that were taken.”

“Who?” Shelly gasps.

“Jasmine and Margueritte.” Miles has hardly delivered the news before he has disappeared into the blackness beyond the fire's glow. 

“Be careful,” dies on Bass’ lips. 

“Is Miles…?”

“He’ll be okay,” Bass says quickly.

“I…I need to sit down,” Shelly wavers and all but falls into the dirt.

Bass drops to his knees to draw her against his chest, pulling the tough canvas of Miles’ jacket against his cheeks. He doesn’t know how long they stay like that until he feels her craning around his shoulder. “Bass. It’s Miles.”

Miles is carrying a little girl, and despite his t-shirt being black, it’s clearly drenched at the side.

“Miles are you…?” Bass gently props up Shelly against the pile of unused firewood and approaches his best friend, just as Miles hands off Jasmine to her mother. 

Miles touches his side like he just noticed it. “It’s a graze.”

“You got shot?” Shelly’s voice trembles from behind Bass.

“I’m fine.”

“Margueritte?”

Miles looks abruptly away.

“She’s dead?”

He nods, his hands on his hips.

“Did you recover her body?” Shelly presses.

Bass swallows, sensing this is leading nowhere good. He’s about to stop Miles, when Miles mumbles:

“I…recovered only her head.”

 _Fuck_.

Bass collects himself and returns to his wife to place both hands on her shoulders. “You’ve got to calm down for the baby, Shelly,” he insists gently. 

She blinks and reaches out under Bass’ arm. “Miles. Come here, sugar.”

Miles’ big, blood-stained hands are shaking, as he approaches. “Let me look at your side,” Shelly prompts.

He briefly lifts up the hem of his shirt to reveal hungry ribs and a nasty bite out of his skin.

“You need a bandage.”

Miles shakes his head. “I’m going for my gun. You should get yours, too, Bass.”

“What do you think they were after?” Bass asks, pulling Shelly back into his armpit.

“They didn’t take any supplies…It’s like they came just for the kill. Or got distracted by it anyway.”

“Christ,” Bass exhales.

Miles is already on his way out and shoots over his shoulder, “I’ll keep watch outside your tent. You guys turn in. Get some rest for the baby.”

* * *

After untold hours of fitful attempts to sleep, Bass decides to check on Miles, whom he finds perched outside their tent cleaning his gun by the firelight.

“Hey, bud. You still bleeding?” Bass inquires.

Miles puts a hand to his side. “Nah. How’s Shelly?”

“She’s having some spotting, cramps. I’m worried.”

“You want me to try to go for a doctor at first light?” 

“And where would you find one of those?” 

Miles peers into the dense night, his shoulders high and tense. 

Bass squeezes his arm. “Miles, you should get some rest. We appreciate you looking out for us, but you’ve got to take care of yourself, too.”

Unblinking, Miles faces him. “I don’t want to…come back and find you two dead.”

Bass thinks on this for a moment. Fair enough. Nothing could persuade him to leave Shelly’s side right now. “Why don’t you move your tent next door?” he suggests.

  
Miles snorts humorlessly, scanning Bass’ face in disbelief. Finally, he shrugs. “Because I bother you, Bass. I can tell. I’m not _that_ dense.”

“Jesus, Miles. Move your tent next door,” Bass asserts with finality. He rakes his fingers through his mess of curls. “Are you okay, man? I mean you haven’t shown any interest in women in ages, and then the first one you do, you find her severed head in the dirt.” 

Miles peers at Bass a little shyly. “I’m fine. And she’s not the only woman…I…you don’t know _everything_ about me.” It’s defiant, a little macho.

Bass puts up his hands to stave off the wrath of Miles. “Okay, sorry. Go get your tent, brother, and then do us all a favor and sleep in it. I’ll keep watch till morning.”

Miles is about to depart when he turns back. “Bass?” Bass’ head snaps back up. “I didn’t ask to be here. It doesn’t make sense, you know, living like nomads. We can’t grow enough food; we can’t set up proper defenses. But I’m here because _you_ are.”

“Is that an admission of love?” One side of Bass’ mouth curls up.

Miles rolls his eyes and is gone, but he'll be back.

* * *

_Coda_

Shelly is cold and already graying on the bed, her perpetual, sweet smile stamped out by the agony of birth and death. The midwife lays the tiny corpse in Bass’ hands, still leashed to its mother by umbilical chord.

As Bass cradles the chilly, slimy thing that was meant to be his daughter, he takes it all in – the way the pale light filters through the tent canvas, the scarlet and brown speckled sheets, the metallic and fecal odors of human insides spread outside. 

_When_ did their baby die? Was it the trauma of that night – those raiders from an adjacent camp still taking from them, all these months later?

Insanely, Bass prays – has never prayed before – but this is not to God. It’s to his sisters: _Please take my little one._ He imagines his daughter growing up to play with Angela and Cynthia – the confidential giggling, the sweat, the high-pitched shrieks of joy. And something truly dies in him. Everything he had built back up since the accident is gone in one great heave. He thrusts his body blindly through the flaps of the tent and collapses into familiar arms.

He bites hard into his brother's shoulder with a sob, as Miles whispers into his hair, “No. Bass…”


End file.
